Meeting the barber
I met Paolo for the first time back in 2005, just after I moved to Manchester. It feels like it happened yesterday. I was taking a stroll around St Ann’s Square, with my head up, trying to find my bearings by using the streets that crossed the square.
Let’s see, if I turn left, I end up in the main street, while that one down to the right should be …
‘Are you lost, mate?’ someone said, in Italian, from an aisle of the gallery around St Ann’s.
I turned toward the voice and I saw a man of around five-foot-six with a dark, curly, shoulder-length mane. He wore a white shirt, a black jacket that clearly wasn’t his size (the sleeves were far too long), black jeans and shiny shoes (which were also, of course, black). He leaned nonchalantly against the arcade that looked out
